How would this deflect the asteroid?
10 Answers
- 3 weeks ago
Focusing a laser on it's surface would cause the material on the surface to heat & eject, giving the asteroid a small amount of thrust in the opposite direction.
Over time, that small thrust *might* push the rock enough such that it'll miss the impact with Earth.
If you can detect an impact with an asteroid 30 or 40 years in advance, then changing it's speed by a few inches per second means it'll arrive at Earth's position a bit before or a bit after Earth passes by...
- busterwasmycatLv 73 weeks ago
the little paragraph in the upper left corner says that it would work by causing surface material to be ejected into space. every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction idea would apply. Throwing material one way requires the asteroid to move in the other. Obviously it would not be very effective (small mass loss won't much affect the asteroid path direction, but it will do it slightly, and slightly is all that is usually needed). Conservation of momentum applies. Material moving one way must be offset by equivalent motion in the other way. Net path remains constant.
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- 3 weeks ago
If an asteroid is a billion miles away, even a tiny nudge from a kinetic force can alter its trajectory. Moving it one inch could alter its eventual path by thousands or millions of miles.
- daniel gLv 73 weeks ago
We have 40 megawatt maser that would do nothing to a larger asteroid.
By the time we could confirm an impact, an asteroid would be far to close to do anything about it. We could do nothing about the school bus size meteor that did some damage in Russia in 2013.
A 100 meter rock would simply hit, taking out a region the size of Texas.
- Ronald 7Lv 73 weeks ago
By slowing it down mainly from the exhaust force of the Rocket
Source(s): Apupo !!! - Anonymous3 weeks ago
Crappy picture, no answer possible.
- Anonymous3 weeks ago
Sorry, cannot dodge that dookie.
ahahahaha